You, too, can paint. Sort of. Do you remember when Ree said wished she could paint? I do. I also remember a comment someone made in the comments. Someone told Ree that should could use Photoshop to paint. My little ears perked right up and I thought, “Well I’ll be! I’m gonna look into that.” And I did. And it was so easy. It was beautiful and not tacky at all. Exactly why I thought it might be tacky, I don’t know. But it’s not. It’s beautiful.

First, choose a photo:

I took this picture a few weeks after I bought my camera. It is set on Medium/ Fine, was shot on Auto, and I couldn’t love it more. Might be partly because we were in Paris when I took it.

Let me show you an up close shot. These need to be looked at up close to see the strokes:

This is straight-out-of-camera (SOOC).

Now, to create a Watercolor:

Click Filter>Artistic>Watercolor

You can’t tell much this far away.

But here’s a close-up of the Watercolor. It’s such a pretty effect. You’ve got to try it.

Now, while you’re at the Watercolor page you can easily try other artistic methods. Here are two more effects I liked for this photo:

This one is called “Paint Daubs.”

Oh my! Look at the petals on those pink roses. Gorgeous. I could never have done this with paint and canvas. But I can do it with Photoshop!

Now, this one is my favorite:

This one’s called “Dry Brush.”

Isn’t that easy and fabulous?

You really must go and try it right now.

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God’s grandchild. ~Dante Alighieri, Inferno

I love this effect! I always use it for my flowers especially. You can take even a crappy picture of a flower and make it look like it belongs on the front of a greeting card with that little filter button!

11

Mamadallama On Friday, August 8 at 10:57 am

ALL those pictures are beautiful! There is something wrong with my eyes though, I guess, since I cannot distinguish the difference from one picture to the next!

Julie On Friday, August 8 at 11:05 am

Remember, these options are also available in Elements. Another favorite of mine under the artistic filter menu is the cutout filter. It’s a bit more stylized, but I like the faux silk screen effect. On certain images, I also like the use of Smudge Stick. Just play around with the filters, and the dialogue box settings to get more or less of each effect. If you also do each filter on a separate layer, you can also adjust the layer blending, and opacity for even more control.

What you could also do is apply the paint filters you’ve applied, then add a layer mask and invert the layer mask by pressing ctrl-i (on the pc). Using a white brush you can actually paint the filter effect back in at those places where you want it. So you’ll get your normal photo, but with for instance the flowers painted in this effect. That way you can create beautiful effects.

I was jsut playing with these types of filters in my little, lame, so-not-photoshop program. My favorite: I selected-by-drawing-the-outline on central flower; inverted the selection so everything but the flower was selected; and applied a watercolor look to the whole background. The single flower was left realistic and sharp. Very pretty!

30

Alina On Friday, August 8 at 11:51 am

Oh my goodness!!! These photos are gorgeous!! I love flowers too and these have to be the prettiest floral shots I’ve ever seen.

Love it!!!

31

Inna On Friday, August 8 at 11:52 am

That is really cool! Gotta try this.

32

deserthen On Friday, August 8 at 11:59 am

I really, really, really must get photoshop! Then I would need to get a new computer as I’m sure this one is to old to use it on, then a new camera, then, then, then………..well one can always dream! Love the photos and tips………someday I will be able to apply them.

That works great on those flowers. Not so much on people, but I thought… “Maybe I could do the background with a duplicate layer and layer mask the person so the background is all ‘painty’ and the person is normal?” That might be fun!

Lisette On Friday, August 8 at 12:00 pm

What beautiful flowers… yup I love the watercolor effect too… oh but I can paint reasonably well.

37

Ellen F. On Friday, August 8 at 12:03 pm

I “paint” with Photoshop all the time. Mine just don’t turn out that well, though… Still, for someone as non-artistic as me, it’s great.

38

Margaret On Friday, August 8 at 12:03 pm

These are gorgeous, you are right, I must go play around!~

39

Jo Jo On Friday, August 8 at 12:05 pm

I want this picture! I would love to have this in a frame for my “happy place” when I need to go there. Would you consider adding it to Pioneer Woman’s prints that we can print or even selling it? Thanks.

40

Janie On Friday, August 8 at 12:10 pm

I have to agree with Carly, Paint Duabs is probably my favorite too. Bending the artistic effects with some of the other combinations can become addicting!

Rosemary On Friday, August 8 at 12:53 pm

I am an artist and that is WAY easier than paint and paintbrush. Beautiful too. Still…..there is something to be said for the therapeutic and confidence-building effects of sitting down with a canvas, paints and paintbrush and composing your own unique creation……but, hey, easy and fast is good too!

Rosemary, I really envy you … this is an effect the pc does for you, one simple click of your mouse and you’re there, but sitting down with a canvas, paints and paintbrush and actually create with your hands what your eyes see, that requires a real special talent. Give me photoshop and I can create whatever you ask me to, drawings, 3d paintings, photo editing, anything. But give me a piece of paper, a pen or brushes and I’m lost.

i used to work for the props department in a theatre and i did a whole “gallery” of paintings like this (the play was about a painter’s gallery show, and i was the lucky one who got to spend days in front of the computer creating them). i took a bunch of photos that looked like the ones described in the script, photoshopped the crap out of them (including lots of “hand” brush work to make the colors more oil-colory), then had them printed on large pieces of canvas. after they were mounted to frames i went over them with clear acrylic for brush strokes. not only were the critics impressed, i brought one home of my husband and me and to this day people look at it and don’t realize that it was originally a digital photo!

Nice! Now not only do I have to beg my husband for a zoom lens, I have to beg for photoshop… He probably will deny me the photoshop b/c he knows he will never be able to pry me off the computer to love on him and tend to our children hahah

Call me crazy, but I just cannot stop staring at this photo! It’s absolutely beautiful! I’m waiting for my Paint Shop Pro X to load so I can see if it has similar options so I can try this for myself. I will have to see if I have as colorful and beautiful a photo in my personal stash. I’m telling you, the colors and subject of this photo are just stunning!

You can also have your “painted photo” printed on canvas which really gives it a painted effect.

67

e On Friday, August 8 at 2:22 pm

First of all, the photo you’re working with is beautiful. But the editing made it so very delightful. Probably the whole being in Paris thing adds so much to it, too. I’d love to go.

68

MariaV On Friday, August 8 at 2:55 pm

I must play with this a bit more. I really like your results.

69

zee On Friday, August 8 at 2:56 pm

I have used the watercolor filter to save a few slightly-blurry (but otherwise quite pleasing) shots. With the filter, the pictures look “artistic” and the blur seems intentional, whereas without it, the shots would probably just be discarded. That’s such a lovely photo… man, I love Paris!

Dee from Tennessee On Friday, August 8 at 3:34 pm

Donna,

I recognized this picture just as soon as I looked at PW’s tabs! (I had started reading your blog not too long before y’all went to Paris. I remember some of the concerns you had about the trip and what a grand time you had.)

Wait, have you tried Poster Edges? I just have Elements 2.0, but I discovered Poster Edges. It makes photos of flowers look like a colored line drawing, or botanical drawing. I love Poster Edges! Many examples here if you’re curious. http://maplecorners.blogspot.com/2008/07/timesuck.html

I love that picture…it is lovely!
I have used the painting filters on PS before and have never been happy with it…but now I think I see that maybe I was using a bit to much intensity on probally to small of a picture (I think I would crop it before hand) I think though I want to go home and give it another try! you have renewed my faith in the painting filters!!

It was me! It was me! I’m the one who commented that PW could paint with photoshop! (go ahead, picture the kid in the back row of the classroom waving her hand). Thank you, Miz Booshay, for giving it a try. You done real good. Picking the right photo to use is the secret. Can I share with you all one of my favorite photoshop paintings? Here it is.http://the7msn.blogspot.com/search?q=donkey+drawings

79

Nikki H On Friday, August 8 at 5:10 pm

You sure painted an awesome picture, Miz Booshay. But more importantly, I would like to GO where you took that picture, please.

Hey there… I use Paint Daubs all the time. Well not ALL the time, but just really fine to sharpen up things that are getting a little grainy with work. Sharpen or unsharp mask seems to grain-ify (?) the pixels too much sometimes and Paint Daubs (Filters, Artistic, Paint Daubs) at just 1 px brush size and about 2 or 3 sharpness has a great effect.

This is something that I happened upon just a few days after I received Photoshop in the mail and it was so much fun to play with! Of course, your photo is the absolute perfect shot for this effect. So, so pretty!